The Physiology of Taste (32 page)

2.
Balzac wrote that Brillat-Savarin was as tall as a drum major, of “almost colossal stature,” and the Professor says, “I am thickset, very tall …”

3.
Mondor was a pompous, ridiculous, rich man, formerly a liveried flunky, the hero of a once-fashionable poem called
L’ART DE DINER EN VILLE
, which was published in 1810. Its author Colnet died of the cholera in 1832, after many stormy years as a royalist writer, but his brilliant letters in the
GAZETTE DE FRANCE
were not remembered as long as his cynical witty exposure of the art of cadging a good dinner in Paris … then and now, too, in Paris and everywhere. Find a wealthy snob, he counselled … and then flattery, unlimited insensate flattery! Malice, and gossip! Servility!

4.
Jean Nicolas Corvisart-Desmarest, a fashionable physician who was put in personal charge of Napoleon’s well-being, died in 1821 at the age of 66, a fairly ripe one for those days.

5.
This reference goes back to Rabelais, who quoted a supposition as prevalent in his day as in Brillat-Savarin’s that the natives of Limôges were powerful tosspots. It may have been the famous
porcelain factories with their glowing kilns that gave the Limousins such a mighty thirst.

6.
Julien Louis Geoffroy (1743–1814) was a well-known man of letters who was feared for his wittily damning theatrical criticisms in the
JOURNAL DES DEBATS
.

7.
Oh! Oh fie, Professor! And perhaps ouch!

69:
IT HAS BEEN
seen in the preceding chapter that the distinguishing characteristic of those who have more pretension than right to the title of gourmands consists in the fact that when confronted by the most delicious viands, their eyes stay dull and flat and their faces remain unanimated.

Such people do not deserve to have wasted on them treasures whose value they cannot appreciate: therefore it has seemed especially important to us to be able to recognize them, and we have sought out every means of attaining this knowledge, important as it is to the classification of men and the understanding of our guests.

We have plunged into this research with the ardor that spells success, and it is to our perseverance that we owe the privilege of presenting to the noble body of amphitryons our discovery of
gastronomical tests
, a discovery which will bring honor to the nineteenth century.

By
gastronomical tests
we designate dishes of recognized savor and of such acknowledged excellence that nothing more than the sight of them will awaken, in a well-balanced man, all his gustatory powers; as a result, anyone who in the same situation shows neither the flash of desire nor the glow of ecstasy can rightly be set down as unworthy of the honors of the gathering and all its accompanying delights.

The method of the tests, duly examined and weighed in grand council, has been inscribed in its golden book in the following terms, couched in a tongue which remains changeless.

Utcumque ferculum, eximii et bene noti saporis, appositum fuerit, fiat autopsia convivae; et nisi facies ejus ac oculi vertantur ad ecstasim, notetur ut indignus
.

This has been translated by the sworn translator of the grand council as follows:

Whenever a dish of distinguished and well-known savor is served, the host will observe his guests attentively, and will condemn as unworthy all those whose faces do not express their rapture.

The power of the tests is relative, and must be adapted to the natures and habits of various classes of society. All these things having been properly weighed, a test must be planned so as to arouse admiration and surprise: it is a kind of dynamometer whose force increases as we mount higher in the social scale. Thus the test to be given to a man of humble means living on the Rue Coquenard would have no effect on a well-to-do shopkeeper, and would be ignored completely at a dinner of the gastronomical elect (
SELECT FEW
) given by a banker or a diplomat.

In the enumeration which we are about to make of the dishes which have been judged worthy of being called tests, we shall begin with those of the lowest dynamometric pressure and gradually increase it, to clarify the whole system in such a way that not only can it be used by everyone with profit, but it can be imitated and augmented along the same lines, called by its user’s own name, and employed by him in whatever walk of life he chances to occupy.

For a moment or two we considered giving here, as concrete proofs, the recipes for the various dishes which we have selected as tests, but we have refrained; we believe that this would do an injustice to the various collections which have already appeared, including the one by Beauvilliers and the recently published
COOK OF COOKS
. We must content ourself with recommending these books to the reader, as well as those by Viard and Appert, and observing that in the latter he will discover various scientific facts never before found in works of this kind.

It is regrettable that the public cannot enjoy a shorthand reporting of all that was discussed in the grand council, while the tests were being determined. What went on will remain forever lost in secrecy, but at least there is one incident which I have been permitted to reveal.

A certain member
*
proposed that there be negative tests, and tests by privation.

For instance, some accident has destroyed a dish of special delicacy, or a hamper of game which should arrive by a certain post has been delayed: no matter whether this be actual or only a supposition, the host, on announcing the unhappy news, will watch and take note of the misery which deepens on the faces of his guests, and will thus be able to formulate a clear scale of their gastric sensitivity.

But this proposition, although tempting at first mention, did not stand up under a more considered examination. The president very rightly observed that such occurrences, which would have but a superficial effect upon the dulled organs of unappreciative diners, could easily have a deadly influence on true gastronomers, even to the point of causing a mortal seizure. Therefore, in spite of some insistence on the part of its author, the proposition was unanimously rejected.

We continue now, by giving the lists of dishes which we have decided worthy to be used as tests; we have divided them into three sections of gradually increasing strength, following the plan and method already outlined:

Presumed Income: 5,000 Francs (Mediocrity)

A big fillet of veal larded with fat bacon and cooked in its own juices;

A domestic turkey stuffed with Lyons chestnuts; Fattened pigeons covered with bacon and well cooked; Eggs
à la neige;

A dish of sauerkraut (
SAUR-KRAUT
) bristling with sausages and crowned with smoked bacon from Strasbourg.

Comment:
“Say, now! That looks damned good! Come on, let’s do it justice …”

Presumed Income: 15,000 Francs (Ease)

A fillet of beef, pink inside, larded and cooked in its own juices;

A haunch of venison, with sauce of chopped gherkins; A boiled turbot;

A choice leg of mutton
à la provençale;
A truffled turkey; Early green peas.

Comment:
“Ah, my dear fellow! What a delightful sight! It’s a veritable wedding feast!”
*

Presumed Income: 30,000 Francs and More (Wealth)

A seven-pound fowl, stuffed round as a ball with Périgord truffles;

An enormous
pâté de foie gras
from Strasbourg, in the shape of a bastion;

A large carp from the Rhine, à
la Chambord
, richly dressed and decorated;

Truffled quails à
la moelle
, on canapés of toast spread with butter flavored with sweet basil;

A stuffed and basted river pike, covered with a cream of shrimps,
secundum artem;

A well-hung pheasant, served roasted à la
sainte alliance
and dressed in his tail feathers;

One hundred stalks of early asparagus, of the thickness of a pencil, with sauce à
l’osmazome;

Two dozen ortolans
à la provençale
, following the recipe given in
THE SECRETARY AND THE COOK
;

A pyramid of meringues flavored with vanilla and rose water. (This test is useful only on the ladies, on men with well-rounded feminine calves, and so on.)

Comment:
“Ah, Sir (or My lord), what an admirable chef
you have! It is only at your banquets that we can enjoy such delicacies!”
³

In order to produce the full effect of any test, it should be served generously: experience, founded on a knowledge of human nature, has taught us that the most delicious rarity loses its influence when its quantity is stingy; the first delightful emotion it arouses in the diners is rightly discouraged by their fear that they will receive but a thin share of the dish, or even be forced, in some cases, to refuse it out of politeness. This often happens at the table of pretentious misers.

I have had many a chance to verify the effects of gastronomical tests; the one I shall recount will suffice.

I was guest at a dinner of gourmands of the fourth category, the clergy, where there were only two of us who belonged among the unconsecrated, my friend R … and myself.

After a first course of the highest distinction, we were served, among other things, an enormous virgin rooster from Barbezieux,
*
truffled to the bursting point, and a veritable Gibraltar of Strasbourg pâté.

This dramatic appearance produced an effect on the assemblage which was very clear but is difficult to describe, almost like the silent laugh mentioned by Cooper, and I at once saw that it was a challenge to my powers of observation.

In effect, all conversation ceased as if hearts were too full to go on; all attention was riveted on the skill of the carvers; and when the serving platters had been passed, I saw spread out in
succession on every face the fire of desire, the ecstasy of enjoyment, and then the perfect peace of satisfaction.

1.
The Professor’s startling list of the virtues possessed by a “perfect financier” has little to do with present-day standards of banking, but was perhaps influenced by his passionate loyalty to anyone coming from his part of the country: M. Felix Sibuet was a native of the Ain, as was Brillat-Savarin.

2.
Here Brillat-Savarin wrote “nopces et festins,” quoting an obsolete spelling used by Rabelais, and probably poking fun at the newly assumed culture of middle-class people. A hundred years later in Burgundy I heard it said of a pretentious
nouveauriche
that he was the kind of snob who actually pronounced the
s
when he said
Mais oui
. There was knowing (and damning) laughter.

3.
In Soyer’s
GASTRONOMIC REGENERATOR
he presents with a pride which is pardonable, if almost incomprehensible to modern diners, his “most recherché” menu, which he prepared in the Reform Club in London on May 9, 1846, for ten people. It consisted of twenty-eight dishes, all of them as Lucullan as possible. Then Soyer adds wistfully: “I had also proposed the following … which I was unable to obtain from Paris on account of a change in the weather preventing their arrival, the articles being two dozen of ortolans; having already procured twelve of the largest and finest truffles I could obtain, it was my intention to have dug a hole in each, into which I should have placed one of the birds, and covered each with a piece of lamb’s or calf’s caul, then to have braised them half an hour in good stock made from fowl and veal, with half a pint of Lachryma Christi added; then to have drained them upon a cloth, placed a border of poached forcemeat upon the dish, built the truffles in pyramid, made a purée with the truffle dug from the interior, using the stock reduced to a demi-glace and poured over, roasted the twelve remaining ortolans before a sharp fire, with which I should have garnished the whole round, and served very hot.”

70:
MAN IS INCONTESTABLY
, among the sentient creatures who inhabit the globe, the one who endures most pain.

Nature from the beginning has condemned him to misery by the nakedness of his skin, by the shape of his feet, and by that instinct for war and destruction which has always accompanied the human species wherever it has gone.

Animals have never been thus cursed, and, were it not for a few battles caused by the reproductive instinct, suffering would be absolutely unknown to the greater number of species in their natural state; whereas man, who experiences pleasure but fleetingly and with only a few of his organs, can always and in every part of his body be subjected to the most horrible pain.